The present invention relates to an apparatus for successively electrically welding immediately successive links of a chain.
Apparatus of this type generally includes welding electrodes and upsetting tools at a welding station, and a saddle located underneath the welding station for supporting the chain link to be welded as well as guides which are associated with the welding station, one guide being provided for the incoming chain portion and sloping upwardly toward the welding station and another guide being provided for the outgoing chain portion and sloping downwardly away from the welding station. Each guide, at that end thereof which is adjacent the welding station has an orienting edge which engages between the two straight, longitudinal sides of a respective one of the two chain links which flank the chain link about to be welded.
An apparatus of the above-described type makes it possible to weld the links of a link chain formed of pre-bent chain links in a successive manner, i.e., one link after the other. The turning of the next link on which the welding operation is about to be performed is effected practically without moving components because even the weight of the link chain portions extending to both sides of the chain link about to be welded or an additionally applied tensioning force is sufficient to urge the straight sides of each of the two chain links flanking the link about to be welded against the orienting edge of its respective guide so that both of these chain links come to lie in a common plane. As a result, the chain link which is to be welded aligns itself at an angle of 90.degree. to this common plane so that the chain link to be welded need only be lifted into the welding position by means of a saddle, which is preferably lockable in the operational position, and positioned by the upsetting tools firmly on the saddle before the welding electrodes are applied to the ends of the chain link about to be welded. Such apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,012,618, issued to Bruno Ebel, Gunter Krumholz and Paul Rahn on Mar. 15, 1977.